What Is And What Should Never Be
by Persephone Price
Summary: End!Verse. This is a love story. Dean/Claire (OC).
1. Find

**A/N: Title (c) Led Zeppelin, most characters (c) the CW.**

* * *

 _What Is And What Should Never Be_

 _1._

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They started with good intentions.

That's how it always is, isn't it? People like them – ' _good'_ people – never purposely set out to wreak havoc, to bring the world to its knees.

Somehow, though, that's what happened. They were trying to save everyone, and in the process they destroyed them. There was everything, there was chaos, then there was nothing, and they were tangled inextricably in it all.

They started with good intentions.

And now…

Now, they're on opposite sides of the coin.

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.

.

Dean is fending off five Croats when Castiel finally shows up with the rest of the camp's warriors. He might have been worried – he _should_ have been worried. He got clawed in the face (he's pretty sure that crazy SOB lost half of her fingernail in his jaw), and the wound is smarting something ungodly. He jammed his index finger too, on top of it.

But there is a certain easiness in being a man unmoored. There's no fear – no fear of maiming, no fear of death. Not really, anyway. Not apart from the animal-instinct adrenaline that kicks in (and _oh_ does it kick in). He's got nothing to lose.

He's already lost it all.

Shane unloads a shotgun into a middle-aged man's back and he hits the ground hard, like a fish flopping on deck. Jo does the same, taking out a little girl with blood seeping out of her eyes.

Cas is probably cross-faded, but he manages to knock back the bitch that scratched him, and Jerry whacks a couple of Croats with his ever-faithful Old Hick. The crunch of bone against wood is sickening.

Soon enough, his (and it is _his_ , when it comes down to it) ragtag brigade of fallen angels, reformed druggies, drifters, and scrawny barmaids gets the job done. They always do, somehow. What is it they say about cockroaches?

(Not that they haven't lost their fair share of soldiers).

Sometimes he thinks they're cursed. Cursed to witness the absolute worst of it all, cursed to survive, cursed to be the ones to pass this on (if there is ever anyone to pass this on _to_ , anyway), to leave this blight on the earth. They're all just writhing in abject remains of what the world used to be, telling themselves it's for something better.

Because many of them believe that – that there is something better. Dean tries to believe it, too. God, he tries so hard. And when he fights, he thinks maybe he is fighting for something, fighting to get this evil out of him. He fights and fights and fights, but when the fights are over he feels no different.

These people need him, though. There has to be a reason they keep surviving. There has to be.

But when an angel loses faith, it's hard not to wonder: _Did He abandon us?_

And Dean never spent much time wondering in the first place.

It's only after all the bodies are fanned out around them, limbs twisted into unearthly poses and blood draining out of them, that he realizes the structure they've just destroyed used to be a church.

Dean starts laughing – a sudden, violent guffaw – and the other members of the party turn their attention to him in alarm.

"Dean?" Castiel questions, head cocked worriedly. "Are you all right?"

"The hell you laughin' about?" Shane demands bluntly in his thick Alabama drawl, cutting straight to the point.

"We're in a fuckin' church," snorts Dean.

The others glance around, as though to verify this claim. Sure enough, there's a battered crucifix dangling a few yards away, rusty nails straining frightfully to keep it aloft. The pews are razed beyond recognition, but there are besmirched sheets of paper scattered across the floor.

Shane scratches his shorn, tanned scalp, struggling to find any hair at all, and chuckles nervously. Jerry follows suit, peeling his filthy, sweat-slick blond locks away from his face and smearing his forehead with blood to better appraise the scene. Castiel and Jo, on the other hand, peer at their friend in concern.

All of a sudden, there's a rustling from the priests' chambers behind the crucifix. Dean, Shane, and Jo raise their firearms, while Jerry raises his bat, elbows askew.

Dean is the first to cock his gun. He hopes it's just a rat, or something below his aim – it would be more of an effort _not_ to pull the trigger.

It is not a rat.

There are two people: two redheads. One male, one female. Dirtied past the point of all humanity, wild-eyed with their clothes hanging off their emaciated frames, but – and god, he can barely believe it – not Croats. The younger one, the male, is white-knuckling a board with nails poking out of it. The older one, the female, has a hunting rifle. The age difference between the two is peculiar. The woman seems too young to be his mother, but too old to be his sister. They're definitely related, though. The red hair is a dead giveaway.

"Wait!" she pleads desperately, shoving the boy behind her. "Don't shoot!"

Dean lowers his gun.

.

.

.

Claire and Charlie. Siblings, after all. They eat ravenously in the mess hall as the rest of the troupe looks on with unfettered interest.

Claire talks a lot.

Charlie doesn't talk at all.

Not one word since entering the compound – it's starting to unnerve people.

"It's just us," Claire tells them at length. She nods sympathetically in her brother's direction and says, "The others are gone. He's taking it hard."

The 'the others are gone' part is apparently all the explanation she thinks they need. The obvious deduction is that they lost the rest of their family. Or their traveling group. In this day and age, the two are practically synonymous.

(To most people, at least).

It's a marvel they're there – a miracle, almost. He can't even begin to comprehend how they survived on their own. He can't believe it.

She smiles a couple of times, baring straight, gleaming teeth. Something that used to be a typical display of human emotion has become shocking – unnatural. She even laughs, and he would compare the sound to church bells, if he could still remember what they sounded like.

For the most fleeting of moments, he can't shake the sense that she was sent here.

.

.

.

"They can't _possibly_ stay," Risa snarls heatedly. "There's a reason they were on their own." (There is always a reason). "If you're not part of a group by now," she logics, "it's because something is wrong with you."

"Damn right," Shane concurs.

Castiel is stoic and quiet, with an all-knowing air about him. Dean turns to him (always) for advice.

Loftily, he says, "Do what you think is right, and I will follow."

A few others nod enthusiastically, and Dean feels a tremendous yoke fall upon his shoulders.

At first, it was just he and Sam. Then there was Lucifer, there was pain and suffering and bottomless anguish and _death_. He was lost, then it was he and Cas fumbling aimlessly through the desolation, stumbling upon survivors and accumulating them by accident.

After a while they started avoiding the uninfected too, because nowadays people are almost worse than Croats. Humanity has been reduced to bands of feral creatures roving the earth, scraping what they can from it and committing untold sins for the sake of 'their own.' There's an otherness about every group they've encountered recently, an inherent mistrust that they find impossible to overcome. People have sorted themselves into clans, tribes. These tribes don't merge – one can only exist at the expense of another. It's survival of the fittest, after all.

Dean does not know what possesses him to advocate for them.

But he says, "One of them's just a kid. If we send 'em back out there, they'll die."

Shane gives a noncommittal, 'not-our-problem' scoff.

Risa's features soften and she tries, "We have enough mouths to feed as it is, Dean."

"They'll die," he urges them to comprehend.

"Well, we're all gonna die, eventually," Jerry pipes in lightheartedly. "But there's no sense in makin' 'em suffer out there on their own."

"Let's put it to a vote," suggests Jo. "'Yes,' they stay, 'No,' we send them back out there."

Castiel distributes little torn parcels of lined paper. They only have one pen on hand, and it's running out of ink. By the time it reaches the last person, they have to scratch their vote into the paper.

In the end, Dean's constituency comes out on top.

.

.

.

He wonders where they came from, how they got here, how they got to that ruined church smack dab in the middle of Arkansas. How many people had to die to get them there. How many people ( _Croats_ ) they killed.

He wonders why.

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"What's that?" she asks one day.

Dean has to look to see what she means, and when his eyes fall upon what she's pointing to he feels a sharp prick in his chest.

Through the foliage, he sees: it's the Impala.

She hasn't been driven for months. She rots in the underbrush, vines and weeds sneaking under the hood, through the rims, into the trunk. She looks more like a carcass than a car, a picture of neglect and disrepair and mechanical evisceration. Nature has overtaken her, and she has succumbed.

When Dean doesn't answer, Claire's nose crinkles. She must notice something in his face. She asks, "Is it yours?"

"Yeah," he answers blandly.

One scratched-up headlight catches the sun, glints at him accusatorily.

He…

She's obsolete – they had no use for her. Now it's just jeeps and trucks, vehicles they can fit supplies and guns and bodies into. She's just… obsolete.

Claire smiles sadly at the car and keeps walking.

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.

.

He doesn't know how it starts, really. But when it does start, he's seven whiskeys deep, Jo's flirting with Jerry, and Castiel is in his barracks with Risa.

Drinking is dangerous. But the compound is safe as anywhere, and _not_ drinking is probably more dangerous. Everyone needs a release every once in a while.

Especially Cas. Dean suspects he has several releases a day.

Not that he doesn't. Well, _didn't_. Things changed and the compound is small, too small, and fighting among the ranks is a definite morale-killer. Head-in-the-clouds Cas is somehow above it all; even in his hedonism, he's sanctimonious. There's no vying for his attention, no wild catfights – all the women are perfectly content to share him.

And then…

For a little while there was Jo, but Jo knew him before this and so there was never any hope for them. She saw the transition – she knows what he's become better than anyone else. And so, there was never any hope.

Claire knows only post-Apocalyptic Dean.

Claire looks at him with blue eyes that make the world just a little bit brighter.

Claire smiles at him kindly, genuinely.

Claire, with red hair that rivals the sun's brilliance, Claire, with an enormity of affection for her little brother that only he can fathom, _Claire_ , this inexplicable survivor, turns her attentions towards _him._

He's the leader of the camp. Maybe that's why.

And he's seven whiskeys deep.

And no one would ever know it, but when it comes down to it, he's weaker than most of them.

.

.

.

It would have been more difficult _not_ to fall for him.

It starts as admiration, and then transmutes to something different.

He saved her and her brother – he's their _savior_ – for no discernible reason. It's only natural that she would harbor _some_ level of affection for him, right?

Plus, she wagers half the women in the camp are at least a little bit in love with him.

Because he's just...

He's beautiful, he's brave, he's silent and strong, he's everything they ever imagined a leader should be.

It's just a fantasy, at first. A story she creates in her head to pass the unending days, the unending nights. It makes her feels a little bit better, makes her think a little less about everything on the other side of that fence. It's just a fantasy. A silly, girlish dream.

It's hero-worship.

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.

.

"My sister likes you," says Charlie, like there is still some innocence left in the world.

Dean is taken aback, drops the gun he's been cleaning.

"Why d'you say that?" he musters.

The boy shrugs. "She just does," he replies, answering a question he didn't ask. He stares at Dean calculatingly, territorially. His eyes are a different color than his sister's.

He feels a rush of something strange, of something that, for a blink, makes him feel normal.

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.

.

The first time they touch, it's pitch-black behind the granary.

It happens so slowly, and then all at once. He imagines it's something like bleeding out – the drawn-out tortuousness of it makes the freedom of death all the sweeter.

Her hands in his hair, his hands up her shirt.

It's dark, and she's a beacon of heat in the darkness. Her mouth is hot on his, her touch brands his torso. It's hungry, feverish, anarchic, desperate – all the things that life has become, distorted in a way that's actually pleasurable.

Jesus, he missed this.

And he's drunk, too drunk, and she's drunk too. Her back is jammed against the paneled wall and his hands are everywhere, his lips drinking her in, stealing each vital breath from her lungs. And it's beautiful, beautiful to feel like this, to feel something other than emptiness, to _forget…_

Their blood is pounding in their ears, drowning out the howls of the undead on the other side of the fence.

They break apart, and his hooded eyes rake over her, searching.

"We shouldn't," he murmurs. Part of him thinks he's using her, like all the others; part of him thinks he isn't, which is even scarier.

She's still in his arms when she says, "It's okay," and her kiss makes him believe that it is.

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.

They keep watch together, sometimes. They sit in the steeple under the stars, gaze down at the army of infected trying to claw their way inside. They only shoot when they have to; even with silencers on their snipers, the noise attracts others. Mostly they just watch them scurry around like vermin, completely out of their minds.

Claire observes a ragged-looking child through the crosshairs. "How did you get it like this?" she whispers. "The group I was with before, we always had to move around."

"I knew this was coming," he says cryptically.

.

.

.

All of a sudden, there is hope in a hopeless world, there is _something_ in the nothingness.

He will have to kill Lucifer, or be killed by him. If he succeeds, he kills Sam. If he loses, Sam kills him. He figures this is what you call a no-win situation. But something's gotta give, and soon.

The name 'Sam' means nothing to Claire. The word 'Lucifer' means her dead mother, father, and brother.

The name 'Sam' doesn't really mean much to anyone anymore, which makes it even stranger when he acknowledges that it means everything to him.

It's daylight. They're sitting on the stoop outside his cabin.

"What if it were Charlie?" he demands candidly. "What if you had to do this to him?"

Tears well involuntarily in his eyes and he snarls to keep them back, fists clenched in his lap.

She touches his shoulder, face screwed up compassionately. Charlie is troubled. She suspects the only reason Charlie is still alive is because civilization has collapsed, because the degradation of social order hasn't left time for anything so petty as mental illness. And she suspects that, sometimes, waiting for death is just the same as actively pursuing it.

"Charlie's not well," she hisses, hating herself for admitting it aloud. "You know that. Don't say things like that about him."

This makes his heart twist viciously. And Sam is? Sam, of everyone, is the _furthest_ thing from 'well.'

"You know what I mean," he mumbles, rubbing his eyes wearily. "He's… he's my brother."

She wonders if Dean's put it off this long just because he can't bear to do it. She reaches for him, ghosts her fingertips over his cheekbone. "Lucifer isn't your brother, Dean… It will stay like this forever, if no one does anything." She begs him to see reason. She chokes, "You're… you're the only one who can stop it."

Why? Why is he the only one? Surely there are other heroes out there, heroes who would _gladly_ slay the dragon. Why does it fall on him?

Dean groans, "Why?"

"It doesn't have to be you in spite of him being your brother – it has to be you _because_ he's your brother."

His mossy green eyes can see her soul, she often thinks. They glint up prettily at her in the sun. He knows she's right. "Isn't it funny how things work out like that?" he says. It doesn't sound very funny at all.

She feels incredibly sorry for him. "So many people have died," she tells him, like it's a fact he might be unaware of.

He sets his jaw resolutely, now looking past her. "I'll do it."

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.

.

Castiel is blindly intoxicated ninety percent of the time. Now that he's left on down earth, he can only function when he's high as a kite. Maybe it makes him feel closer to God.

He says things that sound insightful, wise, but sometimes Dean can't help but wonder if maybe he's just stoned.

Like now: "It will all end once Lucifer's dead," he croaks from the doorway of Dean's cabin.

How? How can he know that?

(He's not an angel anymore).

"You've changed," he goes on. "You're changing."

Dean laughs humorlessly. "So have you. So _are_ you."

"No, I mean…" He studies him carefully, eyes scanning his posture like a laser.

"You mean what?" he probes.

"Yes, you changed right after, but you're changing now, too. And you will change even more, after you do what has to be done. You can't let it destroy you. The world will evolve after this," he says.

 _Evolve_? He wants to scream. Doesn't 'evolve' imply progress?

"Okay, Cas," he capitulates dismissively. He has changed, Castiel has changed, and both of them have changed together. Castiel has gone from divine sage to drunken mystic, and Dean has gone from tortured hero to savage antihero.

He trusted Cas's advice, once. He's not sure if he still does.

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.

.

The night before he leaves, she is there.

It's springtime; it's chilly when the sun goes down, but they don't feel the chill.

She wants to be with him always, with him when it happens, but he has never been so adamant about anything as he is about her not coming.

She worries there's something he's not telling her.

(There's something she's not telling him).

His bed is softer than hers (the one she hardly ever sleeps in anymore), and his cabin is bigger than the one she shares with her brother (the one she only leaves once he's asleep). He is their leader, truly. These people see themselves as _his_ people. He has a responsibility to them. He can't care for Sam, so he has to care for them. He can't have both. He can't take care of both.

In all honesty, he does feel a deep allegiance to them, to Claire. He's doing this for everyone, but he's doing this mostly for her, to keep her safe.

Because this is the Apocalypse.

Because they don't have modern amenities anymore – not apart from what they glean on the raids, which are becoming few and far between as the farm flourishes.

Because they can only be so careful.

Because he's seen her throwing up behind the chicken coop the past five mornings straight.

And this doesn't horrify him nearly as much as it should, but it lights a fire under his feet. There's a time-stamp on things, now. There's a deadline he has to meet. There are people other than Sam.

He _needs_ her to be safe, he _needs her_ …

They're all tangled up together, part of one another, and the closeness is the most untainted thing he has ever felt.

He knows what this feeling really is. He knows the name for it. And lo, it's so ironic it has to be predestined: Dean Winchester has fallen in love at the end of the world. How the hell did that happen?

They've gotten themselves into an insurmountable mess, and this is how, but he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. She is the one thing. She is the one thing in all the world that he's allowed to care about, and he can't give that up.

When they stop, when they just lay there, arms flung around each other, she whispers, "Don't you dare get yourself killed, Dean."

He's staring at the shoddy ceiling; the planks just don't line up quite right, and it's bothering him. They're not collated properly. He should have done a better job.

"I won't," he assures her.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

"I'm ready."

Her ear is over his chest, measuring his heartbeat for signs of dishonesty. He plays with her hair, testing it languidly between his fingers. She worries that he knows what she's doing, that he's trying to distract her. Every trick she knows, she learned from him. Tragically, this makes it easy for him to predict how she's going to behave.

He feels moisture all of a sudden and realizes she's crying on him.

"I need you to be safe," she says plaintively, shifting closer and grabbing him tighter.

Dean cranes his head up, moves his hand from her hair to her bare back. "Shh," he soothes, surprised. "Hey, I'll be all right. I'll be back before you know it."

She props her head up to look him in the eye. "I love you, you know. You probably don't want to hear that, but I do."

He recoils to some degree, but steadily replies, "You're all I got left in this shithole of a world, Claire."

He kisses the crown of her head and they settle again, drifting off into a shallow sleep.

.

.

.

Detroit is a ways away from Pleasant Valley, Arkansas. He mourns each one of his traveling companions before they even hit the road: Risa, Jerry, Jo, Shane, Ace, Castiel, Martin, Steve, Laura.

He watches Claire in the steeple, watches her fade into the distance as their convoy rolls out. They're loaded with an arsenal, a month's-worth of gasoline, and a righteous hatred of everything they have become.

He doesn't know Charlie's stowed away in the back.

(No one does).

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After…

He doesn't return right away.

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.

.

Dean doesn't let Lucifer monolog.

He sees Sam in a pristine white suit, sees him contrasted starkly with the carnage surrounding him, and shoots him right in the heart.

Blood blossoms from the wound, and that's it. It's anticlimactic.

Those who died in the outer circle were lucky: Shane, Ace, Steve, Laura, and Martin were lucky. The outer circle was all Croats. A ton of them, sure, but it was a familiar fight, and they went down swinging.

The inner circle was all demons.

Old Hick is broken in half to his right, Jerry's gutted, lifeless body nearby. Jo's throat is slashed out, heart in the grass five feet away. Risa's head is limp and her face is wearing Glasgow smile. Everyone is dead. Everyone around him died sadistically.

And at the epicenter of it all, is Sam.

This is the first time he's seen his brother's face in years – since he said yes.

He looks the same as he remembers him, completely unscathed.

There are rivers of blood running through Detroit, running all the way to Little Rock.

It's over.

Suddenly, it's over, and he doesn't know what to do.

* * *

 **A/N: Honestly, I don't know why I wrote this. But I did and so here it is. I've been watching A LOT of _The Walking Dead_ , so maybe that's to blame, and I've written a lot of Sam and Dean angst lately so I felt like doing something a tad different. This is supposed to take place over the span of a year or so. I intentionally left Castiel/Charlie's fates unwritten because I didn't want this to be a clean ending. I haven't seen this episode in forever, so I'm sure a lot of the details don't mesh. I put them in Arkansas because it's two letters away from Kansas, the Winchesters' home state but not quite there lol. If you have have time, please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading :)**


	2. Search

**A/N: Thank you so so so much to toridw317 and ImpalaLove for reviewing! You guys are awesome. I just couldn't help but add a little bit of background to this - this chapter is mainly from Claire's POV, and what happened to her before she meets up with Dean. So, that said, we are going BACK in time. Hopefully it's not too confusing.**

* * *

 _What Is And What Should Never Be_

 _2._

* * *

For them, it starts with a tornado in the beginning of July.

It's the weekend of the Fourth; they're all home.

Dad looks out the window. The sky is an unearthly greenish color. Trees rustle ominously. American flags sway all the way down the street.

"Get into the basement!" he orders, full-on Sergeant Shurley. "Go!"

Mom ushers her two adult children and one half-grown one towards the stairs.

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.

.

She had dreams about this, before. Dreams about a green sky. Dreams about a man in a white suit. She never knew what they meant.

They were just dreams.

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.

When they finally emerge from the basement, the upper story has been completely leveled.

The house was lovely, once – yellow with white trimming. Now, it's just an utter mess of debris, like all the others in the cul-de-sac. She steps over broken glass, torn photographs, the remains of the furniture, to walk into the driveway and down to the road. Even the blacktop is spotted with trash, spotted with stained fabric that was once red, white, and blue.

She turns around and stares at the unrecognizable remains of the home she grew up in. She thinks she ought to feel sad – maybe even distraught – but she just feels numb. She's in shock, in awe. And her family is all there, so she figures they're fortunate. She's certain people died.

Several other families are also standing outside, marveling at the biblical ruin, staring at the gradient sky to ascertain whether it's over at last. No one can be sure, not even Dad, not even the ones who've seen this before.

She hears injured neighbors groaning in the rubble. She hears water running from burst pipes, she hears dogs barking and whining frantically. She hears a _drip drip drip_ , and all of a sudden Dad screams, "GET DOWN!" and everything goes whiter than the sun.

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.

.

Ryan is standing above her, five stitches above his right eyebrow.

He runs his hands over his military buzz-cut from back to front, belabored.

"Mom didn't make it," he says.

Claire tries to sit up, but feels like all her ribs are broken. Charlie's standing near the corner, looking like he's seen too much. Dad is nearby, expression completely unreadable. Both of them are scratched-up, too. She's sure she is. She's aware of a scab somewhere on her cheek when she opens her mouth to speak.

"We have to go," Ryan says urgently.

"What?" she croaks. Her voice is dry and hoarse, and talking feels like swallowing razorblades.

Ryan tugs her arm with unprecedented force. "We have to _go_."

They're in a hospital. That, she can tell easily – the sterile sea foam-green color scheme is unmistakable.

"What's going on?"

"After the twister, there was a gas leak," Dad says, sounding faraway. "They took us here, but now-"

All of a sudden, there's a hideous screech from the hallway.

Ryan hauls her out of the hospital bed. "We have to go!"

Claire is up. She's wearing a hospital gown. They all are.

He's shepherding them out of the room and into the hallway, where the scream came from. It doesn't look at all like it should – lights are flickering, dislodged from their sockets, IV poles are toppled over and scattered, various other medical paraphernalia dots the floor like confetti. There are no people. Why aren't there any people?

And there's blood.

Splatters of it – not blood-drive blood, the type of blood you expect to see in hospitals.

She feels a pang in her chest, like something is deeply wrong, but they don't stop moving. Dad and Ryan get them out of there, and Ryan hotwires the nearest ambulance.

Outside, there is an unholy din. There are screams like the one they just heard – inhuman screams –, children crying, car alarms going off, engines revving.

The sound of people moving.

The sound of people running.

They speed away.

There are no windows in the back.

Claire's not sure if she wants to see, anyway.

.

.

.

If Dad knows one thing, it's where to find guns.

If Dad knows one thing, it's how to survive.

One thing he didn't know? Vietnam was just the tip of the iceberg.

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.

.

She'll never forget the first one she killed.

It was an elderly man wearing a burgundy sweater, wispy-white hair caked in blood. He had the sort of wise, benevolent, wrinkled face you see from time to time, in the grocery store or at the doctor's office. He was probably someone's grandpa, once. He probably meant something to someone.

She knew right away that something was wrong. She saw it in his eyes, in the contorted kindness in his face.

He ran at her and she shot him, just like that.

.

.

.

They say it's a virus.

That's why it was so bad at the hospital.

Chicago is swarmed in a matter of days – most cities are. You can't go near them. There are legions of… they don't really know what to call them. Charlie started calling them 'infected,' and it kind of stuck.

They can't really call them people. It's too hard to think of it like that. It's too hard to kill them when you think like that.

The suburbs are still okay though, for the most part.

On the road, they catch glimpses of the news. Fox is sold on the End of Days theory; CNN and MSNBC are leaning towards bioterrorism.

But the whole world is collapsing, not just the US. Pictures of bodies clogging the ancient canals of Venice, of the streets of Calcutta in utter chaos are constantly flashing across the screen.

She can't imagine that humans engineered something that could do this. She won't.

She wonders where the newscasters are hiding, how they're still able to broadcast. She wonders who's protecting them and why.

Churches across the country are overflowing. Before it gets really bad, people flock to them, turn them into fortresses. Claire thinks something about that is nice. She wishes she could have faith like that. Wishes they could stay in one place. Wishes…

They're moving south.

"We need to get to an island," Ryan reasons. "That's – I mean, that's what makes the most sense, right?"

He's driving. He turns to Dad, in the passenger seat. He's not looking at him; he's looking out the window.

"Yeah," he agrees distantly.

Claire sees a flicker of something tortured flash across Ryan's face, and he swallows hard.

.

.

.

There's another virus that's taken the nation by storm, and no one's talking about it: mass suicide.

The first time she realizes what's happening, they're in Missouri. They come across an old Rite-Aid with parking lot chock-full of cars. Nowadays, Claire always starts looking at things from the ground up. So the first thing she notices is the cracked tarmac, the weeds, the cigarette butts and bubblegum. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The cars, though. They're full.

Whole families in them. Just dead. Like they couldn't even wait to drive home to do it.

There's a baby in one of the cars, strapped snugly into a car seat. Ryan looks at her in horror, making her feel like the elder sibling for the first time in a long time. Voice low, he chokes, "Who the fuck would do something like that?"

Dad puts his hand on the back of Charlie's neck.

"Don't look," he says.

.

.

.

Most of the time, it's just quiet. Just the four of them on the road. Sometimes, it's even peaceful; at least they have each other.

Claire thinks back to the Rite-Aid a lot. She wonders how the churches fared.

.

.

.

She notices cuts on Charlie's forearms, one day. She wouldn't think anything of it, normally. She can't remember the last time she saw a person whose skin wasn't littered with scratches and bruises.

But these cuts are straight, systematic, and don't quite blend in with the others.

At the campfire, when Dad and Ryan are cleaning up after a dinner of squirrel and baked beans, she grabs his wrist and studies the pale flesh.

The lines are thick. Some are scars, some are half-healed, some are fresh and barely scabbed over.

"What's this?" she demands.

Charlie peers up at her in a mixture of panic and fury, unshed tears dancing in the firelight.

"Mom's dead," he says, like he's the only one who knows it.

.

.

.

They move so often, she doesn't really feel the loss. How can she? How can she mourn her the way she deserves to be mourned? If they stop moving, if they stop to think about it, they'll die.

.

.

.

Dad isn't the same, after.

Ryan is doing everything he possibly can to keep them together.

She admires him. He's younger than she is, but he's so much better at this. They wouldn't be here, if it weren't for him.

So she hates to put this on him. She hates to, she hates herself for it. But she's running out of options.

They're camped on the top of a hill near the border of Missouri and Kentucky.

She says, "Charlie has been hurting himself."

Ryan looks at her in shock and alarm, blue eyes that are identical to hers flashing with pain.

"What do you mean?" he manages.

"After Mom…"

Ryan nods, like that explains it all, and stares at his folded hands in the dark.

There seem to be more stars in the sky, nowadays. Maybe it's because there's no more light pollution, no more electricity in the cities.

She says, "I… I tried talking to him. But he doesn't listen to me the way he listens to you."

He nods again. "I'll talk to him."

Claire rises from her knees and brushes several clumps of grass off her shins. Ryan stays on the hill, one leg bent towards his chest and the other spread out in front of him.

Dad and Charlie are around the fire, manically cleaning guns. She watches her father's weathered hands dance their way gracefully across the metal, watches the expertise in his movements. Charlie is watching him, too, trying to follow his example.

She goes to her rucksack and digs out a can of Swiss Miss they found a few towns back and have been rationing ever since. She fills a battered copper pot with water from her own meager supply, holds it over the flame for a few minutes. Once it comes to a boil, she stirs in the chocolate powder.

When she climbs back up the hill to bring some to Ryan, she sees his silhouette shuddering against the moonlit indigo backdrop of the night.

It's only when he brings his hands to his face that she realizes he's sobbing.

Quietly, she turns around and walks back down the hill.

.

.

.

She dreams about a man who can save them.

She dreams about a black car.

.

.

.

Something happens when they get to Arkansas.

By now, they've long since ditched the ambulance in favor of a far more pragmatic SUV.

The infected have leached into the suburbs and they travel in herds, like animals. They mostly just meander around brainlessly, unless you get too close or make too much noise. They avoid them rather than fight their way through them, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

They're running out of food and fuel, and they have to stop at a gas n' sip. This sort of supply run has become routine, by now.

Dad and Ryan go in.

And god, was it a mistake.

.

.

.

"S-someone… Someone must have trapped them in there, I don't-"

"Ryan, what happened?" Claire demands, gripping his shoulders to keep him from trembling so violently.

Dad is groaning in pain, clutching his left wrist to his chest.

Ryan heaves a deep breath and says, "They bit him."

Charlie's eyes widen to saucers and he cries, "No, that can't-"

"You… You have to shoot me," Dad says, like it's no big deal.

"Are you crazy?!" Claire questions hysterically. "Why the hell would you say something like that?!"

"You have to, honey, I'm gonna turn," he laments.

"No. No no no no," Ryan chants, pacing back and forth. He runs his hands over his grown-out hair from back to front. "No."

Claire cannot accept this, either. "There has to be something – there's got to be-"

"You know there isn't," says Dad.

Tears forging rivers down Charlie's face, making his complexion ruddy. He hugs his father tightly around the middle.

Dad clears his throat, getting choked up, and puts his good hand on the top of his son's shaggy head.

"We don't have all day," he warns.

To be honest, they have no idea how long the infection takes to spread. They've never seen anyone turn before.

Claire takes Ryan aside, leading him by his elbow.

"What do we do?"

Ryan is shaking his head feverishly. Even after all they've been through, she's never seen him like this.

"I don't…" is all he says.

Claire feels something hot and oily in her stomach. Thank god she hasn't eaten anything all day, or surely she would chuck it back up right about now.

She asks, "Do you want me to-"

Ryan looks at her suddenly, lucidly. "No," he states. "I'll do it. It should be me."

She has no idea why it should be him, but she's not sure if she even _could_ do it, so she's not about to argue.

"Do you want me to come?"

"No," he repeats.

He storms back to the others and tears Charlie away from their father, roughly. It's the first time he's ever seen hatred in his little brother's eyes – pure, ugly hatred.

He leads their father far, far away, down to a riverbed.

The last thing Dad says to him is, "I'm proud of you, son."

Claire and Charlie can hear the gunshot from the car.

.

.

.

Ryan never comes back.

They wait all night.

They don't know what happened to him.

.

.

.

Claire and Charlie wander around Arkansas on their own for a couple of weeks, not really knowing what to do.

Do they keep going south?

Do they try to find others?

Do they just stop?

At night, Claire imagines all the ways they might die. As they're lying in the back of the SUV, an infected might come and break through the windows and that would be it. It would all just end right there, like that. Or maybe it will end tomorrow, or the day after. But sooner or later…

It feels like they're biding their time, like all they're doing is waiting. Like all they _can_ do is wait.

She wants to stop moving. What's the point? What's the point of any of it?

It's so lonely. Charlie hasn't spoken a word since.

.

.

.

She dreams about a church, and the next day they cruise by it.

"We should go in," she says. "We have to go in."

Charlie just looks at her blankly, but follows nevertheless.

Claire takes the hunting rifle with her, because she's not stupid. Charlie doesn't take anything, and part of her is glad for it.

They enter the priests' chambers, quiet as mice. Inside, there is no food, and her stomach is aching at the mere memory of what it felt like to be full. Their last meal… Wow, she can barely remember it. Probably that rabbit they caught a couple of days ago.

But there is water, which is much more important.

They guzzle holy water. Is it safe? Is it sanitary?

She doesn't know. All she knows is it remedies the sandpaper lining of her esophagus, and damn, if it kills her, this would be a great way to go.

After a few minutes, they hear voices in the nave, and her whole body goes rigid. Infected don't speak. _People_ speak, and she doesn't know what people would do to them.

The sound of a woman's voice makes her feel more at ease, but only slightly.

She looks at Charlie, whose face has gone white in terror.

They're not going to make it on their own. They're just… not.

She thinks about food. She thinks these people don't sound like they're starving to death. She thinks her stomach is trying to digest itself. She thinks she's not just responsible for herself.

"C'mon," she hisses, grabbing his wrist and pulling him along.

Charlie plants his feet, shaking his head viciously.

" _C'mon_ ," she insists. "They could help us. They sound okay. They sound like good people."

He still looks wary, and snatches a plank of wood that's come away from the wall.

This time, when she pulls him he complies.

.

.

.

She knows the moment she lays eyes on him that he's the type of man they need. The type of man like Ryan, like their dad.

The type of man who sets things in motion, who doesn't just wait, who doesn't just bide his time.

He is a leader.

And something about him is familiar.

.

.

.

He sits with them in the back of the jeep on the way to the camp, assessing them. The windows are blacked-out. Probably so they can't find their way back to wherever it is they're going.

He scrutinizes their bodies unabashedly, and suddenly it dawns on her: he's searching for bite marks. There's no way he doesn't notice Charlie's wrists.

"We're not infected," she assures him.

He tilts his chin up slightly and leans back, like it wouldn't really matter if they were.

"What's your name?" he asks flatly.

"Claire," she answers. "And this is my brother, Charlie."

She watches him expectantly, waiting for him to return the favor.

"I'm Dean," he says finally.

* * *

 **A/N: There might be more to this, idk. Never say never. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Rise

**A/N: Thank you so much to ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter! Okay. So. This is actually the end, for real this time.**

* * *

 _What Is And What Should Never Be_

 _3._

* * *

 _Then:_

 _Dean doesn't let Lucifer monolog._

Now:

Dean doesn't let Lucifer monolog, because he can't afford to.

He hasn't seen Sam in years. He's not in his right mind.

Lucifer would try to trick him, pretend to be Sam. And he would probably succeed. He can't imagine – he can't imagine how much that would hurt, even if it's just a charade. So Dean can't even let him try.

His brother's 6'4" frame falls like a piece of lumber, and the earth even seems to quake when he hits the ground.

Something monumental has happened: Lucifer is dead.

Something monumental has happened: Sam is dead.

Dean only sees Sam. He _only_ sees Sam. He sees Sam when he closes his eyes, sees a bullet connect with his chest. Sees his own finger squeeze the trigger.

Dean looks again at all his dead friends, their body parts strewn across the garden. He falls to his knees and pukes in the flowers. He heaves and heaves, until there's nothing left in his body at all. Then, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks to the sky.

The clouds are clearing. A ray of sunlight touches his face.

He doubles over and retches again.

.

.

.

He takes the body.

He digs graves for Risa and Jerry and Jo and Shane and Martin and Steve and Laura and Ace and buries them at the scene.

But Sam…

He takes Sam.

He carries him to the jeep, cradles him like he's made of china, like he's still a kid. Once he loads him in the car, he wonders suddenly: _Where the fuck is Cas?_

One of the jeeps is missing. He doesn't dwell on whys or hows.

He notices a shock of red hair in the grass, near the third jeep.

Dean takes this body, too. It's feather-light compared to the first.

.

.

.

He drives straight to Lawrence. It's not even a choice – it's just autopilot, some strange, homing mechanism kicking in. He drives straight there, to the cemetery where their parents are buried.

He cries the whole time.

He cries as he drives, as he drags Sam out of the jeep, as he looks at the tombstones. God, he thinks he might never stop crying.

After a while, he feels lightheaded and dehydrated, and his ribs hurt. He doesn't know if he's injured or not. All he knows is he's in pain.

He lays Sam on the ground next to their father's grave and just studies him.

He's not going to bury him like that. He's not going to fucking bury him looking like that.

All of a sudden, he rips off the white suit jacket and un-tucks his shirt in a frenzy. He takes off his own flannel and threads Sam's limp arms through it, one after the other, desperate to make him look more like himself. He's not going to bury him in fucking Lucifer's clothes. He's not going to bury him as the fucking devil.

When he's done, he kneels over the corpse. "I'm so sorry, Sammy," he says. "I'm so-" He can't finish. Why did he do this? Why did he say yes?

Why didn't he?

The sound of his shovel slicing through the dirt is crisp and clean.

He holds his brother one last time, presses his nose into his hair.

He lowers him into the earth.

He fills the grave.

He doesn't even think to burn him.

.

.

.

Something has ended.

Something has _ended_.

Why do people think something has begun?

.

.

.

He doesn't even notice until he's halfway back to Arkansas. He doesn't even notice that there are no more Croats, that the world is trying to resuscitate itself. He doesn't notice the hordes of people hugging and singing kumabaya in the streets, the preachers and priests and pastors and rabbis giving sermons outside gas stations. He just doesn't notice.

Whatever victory they see, he sees as a defeat.

He's used to avoiding highways by now; it's second nature. They're filled with parked cars, like time just stopped during rush hour and everyone abandoned their vehicles on a whim. Also, they're usually inundated with Croats.

He supposes that it isn't really a problem anymore.

But still, he takes the back roads out of habit.

He sees a doe emerge from the forest disbelievingly. She steps out into a field, wide-eyed and hesitant, to graze. His first thought is _food._ His second thought is _shame she's so beautiful._ He'd always had problems hunting animals, Bobby used to remind him. Go figure.

He supposes he doesn't have to pull over and shoot it anymore.

.

.

.

Every so often, he looks in the rearview.

There's a kid's head lolling against the backseat.

He fights the impulse to crash the car.

.

.

.

She realizes Charlie is gone once she comes down from the steeple, right after they leave.

She shouts, she tries to go after them, but the others stop her, hold her down. Tell her it's not safe. Like she might die chasing after them. Like she would want to live without the people who are in that convoy in the first place.

"Don't worry," Meagan tells her, urging her to calm down. "He's with Dean. He'll take care of him."

"He always does," Stacy supports.

For a moment, their blind faith startles her. But then she remembers Charlie is not _their_ brother, and it's easy to throw around platitudes when you're not the one in trouble.

But she wants to believe them. She loves Dean, and he has never given her a reason not to trust him.

He saved him once – surely he can do it again.

.

.

.

Claire isn't afraid that Dean will die.

She's had dreams – she knows how this is supposed to go.

Claire is afraid he won't come back.

.

.

.

Everyone with the Croatoan virus is cured.

Isn't it great? Isn't it wonderful?

When Claire learns this, she has the wind knocked out of her.

Because yes, it's great, but –

That means Dad died for nothing. That means they killed him for _nothing_. If they had known, if they had just let him –

Meagan touches her shoulder blade, eyes brimming with firsthand understanding. "It's okay," she soothes morosely. "None of us knew. We couldn't have known."

Stacy understands, too. "We've all done things," she says. "You're not the only one. We couldn't have known."

Claire is immensely glad not to be alone.

She murmurs, "Will they remember?"

Rich laughs bitterly. "I sure as hell hope not."

.

.

.

When Castiel comes back alone, she can't help but feel her worst fears have been confirmed. It takes all she has not to just collapse at the sight of him, not to break down into histrionics right then and there.

Castiel seems to sense this.

"Dean is alive," he tells her enigmatically.

"Well, where is he?" Stacy demands.

"Where's _everyone_?" Rich adds. There's a murmur among the crowd. Castiel looks uncomfortable.

Claire finds her voice: "Where's Charlie?"

.

.

.

"What now?" Meagan asks, sounding totally unhinged. "Do… Do things just go back to normal?"

It's a good question: What now? What the fuck happens now? It's what everyone's wondering.

They look around the compound. They remember what it took to get here, the sacrifices they made. The people they lost. And what now? They're just supposed to return to business as usual?

"No," says Stacy. "They can never."

They've become wild, really – it's only natural they should fear returning to civilization.

"Things won't be the same," Castiel declares, "but they will get better."

.

.

.

This is how their champion returns: Dean shows up a few days after Cas with a dead boy in his arms.

Claire meets him at the gate, but her knees give out before she actually reaches him, buckling under the full force of her entire family's demise.

"No," she screams. "No, no, no, no."

Dean kneels too, gently lays her brother's body between them in the dust.

It's not clear what killed him; from the way his head rolls limply as she clutches him against her, she suspects a broken neck. She can still hold him. It's an effort, but she can still carry him. That's how small he is.

They're all dead, now. All of them except her.

She pets Charlie's long hair over and over again, shivering violently, completely beside herself. Dean pulls her to him to give her some stability, and she sobs into his filthy shoulder.

"I'm-I'm so sorry," he says. His voice is hoarse, but he's run out of tears. "I'm so sorry. He just-he must've... I should've... I didn't know, I didn't-"

It's a horrific display. The rest of the survivors leave them, despite their curiosity. They can't bear to see this. Not when there's supposed to be _hope_ , now.

Dean has to carry Claire back into the camp.

Cas digs a grave for Charlie.

War always has casualties, but _this?_

Is this winning?

Is it?

.

.

.

Rich makes the mistake of asking Dean about the others over dinner.

"What happened up there in Detroit?" he questions, unaware of what he's actually asking.

Dean hurtles a beer bottle against the wall and it shatters shrilly.

No one asks about it ever again.

.

.

.

There are whispers in the camp, whispers about their champion. Some people say he led their friends into death. Like they didn't choose to follow him. Like he doesn't know it was still his fault.

"It was a suicide mission."

"They're dead because of him."

"Why the hell would he take that kid with him?"

"How could he do this to us?"

Hasn't he given enough already? What more do they want from him?

Can't they just let him have his sorrow? Can't they just leave him alone?

He can't be what they need him to be anymore. He can't. He won't – he won't be _that_. He's not a leader, and he's done taking care of people. He washes his hands of them.

He thinks, briefly, this is a bad attitude for a father-to-be.

(He almost wants to laugh, then. He almost forgot).

.

.

.

He doesn't push her away.

He thought he might, but he doesn't.

He doesn't really know why.

(He almost didn't even come back).

.

.

.

In the aftermath, Dean and Claire cling to each other so tightly they don't if they're elevating one another or just the opposite.

It isn't healthy.

There's a gaping, bleeding, brother-shaped void in both their chests that can't be filled. Dean can't fill it with Claire. Claire can't fill it with Dean.

But they try.

"I'm not a hero," he tells her quietly, when they're alone at night. "I'm not who they think I am."

His head is in her lap. She brushes the hair away from his forehead. "You saved the world," she replies.

He smiles; a painful, labored twitch of his lips. He doesn't have the energy to dispute her, not anymore. All he says is, "It doesn't feel like it."

He saved the world.

He saved the world, but not for himself.

.

.

.

Their suffering is oddly parallel. They have nightmares together, they ask the same questions, they both wonder why. Dean wonders why Sam said yes. Claire wonders why Charlie left the camp. They'll never find the explanations they seek – there's no one left to explain them.

Maybe Sam thought he could take Lucifer all on his own.

Maybe he had a death wish.

Maybe Charlie thought Ryan was still alive and went out to look for him.

Maybe he had a death wish.

They'll never know for sure.

.

.

.

Claire doesn't blame Dean for Charlie's death.

Dean blames himself. Dean blames himself for everything.

.

.

.

The walls around the camp come down, at some point. People move into town. Some even take their families and move away, into neighborhoods and gated communities in nearby counties. Some go back to where they came from, wherever that may be.

Dean and Claire stay. They can't imagine going anywhere else. They don't want to see new people, don't want to see any of it. They can't help but feel this new world is not for them.

So, they stay. Some of the others stay too, but not many of them.

Castiel stays. Castiel doesn't know who he is anymore, doesn't know what to do, even more than the rest of them. Leaving Dean would be absolutely devastating to him. Dean is the only thing that he cared about when he used to be an angel that he still cares about.

His face is sad when he looks at Dean, like he's trying so hard to remember something but just _can't_.

Dean weans him off the drugs. Slowly. Patiently. One day at a time.

It's scary and surreal – there's falling, and then there's _falling_ , and Castiel has plummeted. Seeing him like this…

It's scary and surreal, but Claire thinks it helps both of them. Dean likes projects (needs projects). And Cas needs him.

Dean sometimes thinks he wants to be done taking care of people.

He sometimes thinks maybe he has addiction too, like Cas.

.

.

.

Claire isn't sure she actually ever tells Dean about the baby. But somehow he just _knows_.

She genuinely can't remember if she told him or not. Things from that time… they're hazy. One big, muddled cloud of tragedy in her brain that she hardly ever tries to sift through.

But he seems happy about it – as happy as he has the capacity to be, anyway.

Maybe this can fill the void, that void neither of them can fill for the other. Maybe. Maybe.

"Will you name him Charlie?" Dean asks her suddenly one day.

"No. No," she sputters.

He's immediately sorry he said it.

"Not Sam, either," she says.

"No," he agrees.

.

.

.

In the end, it doesn't even matter; she's a girl.

Dean laughs and laughs because he'd been so sure it was a boy, amused by his own stupidity. He takes her in his arms and says, "You're gonna be a little heartbreaker."

Still, she thinks he's glad.

She's glad – she'll never look like Sam or Charlie.

.

.

.

They call her Mary.

Every time Dean puts her to sleep, he hums _Hey Jude_.

Every time Claire puts her to sleep, she kisses her forehead and whispers, "Your daddy saved the world for you."

.

.

.

She always said: Dean likes projects.

Cas is back to semi-normal, now; three months sober, the longest he's ever gone.

Dean fixes up the Impala, gets her running again. Claire never truly realized it until now, but that car is his pride and joy. He's out there every day, grease-stained and attentive, fiddling under the hood. He has to get parts shipped in from god-knows-where, but he does it. He drives into town and picks them up, assembles them lovingly. After a while she's shiny and beautiful, like a new penny.

One day, when he's all finished, he takes Mary out to see. He sits her on his lap in the driver's seat, and her tiny, grabby hands instantly find the steering wheel.

Dean looks at Claire, and just beams. His eyes crinkle in the corners and, for an instant, his face shows nothing but pure happiness.

She's never seen him smile like that before.

.

.

.

Cas asks him, once, "What will you do now? Will you start hunting again?"

Dean laughs and says, "I have no friggin' idea."

.

.

.

After almost a year to the day, Dean gets a strange call from Rich. He moved back into town, but he visits the old campground every once in a while. Dean has built himself a farmhouse, a real one. The planks on the ceiling line up seamlessly.

Cas has built a house on the grounds, too. And Meagan, with her new beau Carl. They're the ones who stayed.

Rich says, "Man, you're never gonna fuckin' believe what I found."

"What?" Dean demands.

"It's a surprise. It's a surprise – you're gonna love it. You and Claire."

"Uh… Okay," he says warily. "Just… No more pets, man. A dog is not a housewarming present. You can't just _give_ people living creatures."

"Hey don't lie, you love Arrow. You were always goin' on about wantin' a dog."

"She barks like a motherfucker."

"Beagles, man."

"Yeah, whatever. It better not be another dog. That's all I'm sayin'."

"Yeah, yeah… So, how's the baby?"

"Loud."

Rich snorts uproariously on the other end of the line. "My cabin used to be next to yours, Dean-o. Not surprised."

Dean is grinning and he can't help it. "Shuddup," he chides.

"Frankly, I'm surprised y'all just have the one."

"Yeah, okay. She's fine, though. We're all… fine." He never thought he'd say it.

.

.

.

That night, Rich appears on their doorstep with a tall young man with mussed brown hair and brilliant blue eyes. Arrow yips at his feet.

"This is Ryan," Rich introduces to Dean, his own black-brown eyes sparkling mirthfully. "Ryan Shurley."

Dean's hand, mid-handshake, goes completely limp, and his eyes nearly bug out of his skull. His mouth goes slack for a few beats, until he manages, "Wha- how- Claire!"

Claire materializes from within the house, Mary on her hip. Dean quickly takes the baby from her, afraid she might drop her in shock.

"What is i-" Then, she sees. "R-Ryan? No, it can't be… How?"

She collapses in her brother's arms, and he hugs her back tightly.

"It's a long story," he murmurs into her hair.

.

.

.

In the living room: "You'll never believe it," Rich says, shaking his head with an ear-to-ear grin. "You know, in town people're putting up fliers. You have to have seen 'em."

Claire and Dean nod enthusiastically. They're everywhere. Pasted on every wall, on the back of every milk carton. Things like:

 _Missing: Abraham Lahey, 52._

 _Missing: Carlos Alvarez, 11._

 _Missing: Sydney Atkins, 23._

 _Missing missing missing._

Rich digs two folded fliers out of his pocket. They're faded and torn, but still legible.

 _Missing: Claire Shurley, 27._

 _Missing: Charles Shurley, 17._

Claire stares at her own face, her brother's. She has no idea when or where the photos were taken, or how he got them.

Seventeen. That's how old Charlie would be now, if…

"Saw these in the window of the hardware shop. I recognized the two of you right away, and I figured… I dunno. Figured it had to be kismet, or somethin'. Number sent me straight to him."

Their heads swivel in Ryan's direction.

"What happened?" Claire asks softly.

He gulps nervously, brushing off the tops of his jeans.

"After," he starts. "I couldn't… The way Charlie looked at me, Claire," he pleads desperately. "It was like… It was like he didn't even know who I was, like… I couldn't…"

"So, then what? Where did you go?"

"I was off on my own for about a week, from what I remember. I must… I must've been bitten. I woke up months later here, in Arkansas, when it was all over. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I thought you might be around these parts still… I dunno. I've been back in Illinois, trying to help rebuild…" He pauses, staring at his hands for a few moments. He goes on, "Charlie… Is he…?"

She nods solemnly. "Yeah. He… He snuck out. Right before it ended. He's… buried out there."

Ryan nods, too. "I figured… When Rich only mentioned you, I figured something probably…" He scrubs his hands over his stubbly face, eyes bloodshot. He looks much older than Claire remembers him.

When he pulls his hands away from his face, he takes a deep breath and changes the subject. "You have a baby," he says in wonder, staring at Mary in her brightly colored walker. "And… and a _dog_."

"You can thank Rich for that part," Dean grumbles.

"You can thank _Dean_ for the first part," Rich adds smugly.

Claire shoots them both a disapproving look. Dean _loves_ Arrow, anyway. "Dean and the rest of his camp found us and took us in a couple of weeks after you left," she informs Ryan.

"That's good. That's lucky," he says.

"Yeah," she agrees halfheartedly.

"It is," he says adamantly. "God, Claire, you're lucky you never… The way it is out there… The things I must've done…"

He looks up at his audience. They all have the same question written on their faces, though none of them are willing to ask it.

"I don't remember it," he says. "Oh god, I don't remember it, but it must have been…"

"It's okay," she tries to appease, laying a hand between his shoulder blades. "It wasn't your fault."

He nods his head woodenly. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what you have to tell yourself."

.

.

.

He visits Charlie's grave.

There's a worn, wooden cross with his brother's name sloppily carved into it – that's how he knows it from the others.

The earth is green above where the body must be.

He kneels, touches the marker.

"I'm so sorry, buddy," he chokes. "I wish I could've told you how sorry."

.

.

.

Ryan stays a few days. He meets Cas, Meagan, the others.

He and Dean hit it off big time. They take the Impala to a bar in town.

Dean misses this.

He can't go to a bar with Cas, and Rich is a little too wild for him these days.

But to see that passenger seat filled with a tall, brown-haired figure…

He probably drinks more than he should.

When they return, Ryan's face is flushed and he's wearing dopy grin. They have their arms slung around each other's shoulders.

"You got my brother drunk?" Claire asks in horror as they stumble through the threshold.

Dean flashes her a guilty smirk. "It was only a coupl'a beers," he defends. This is clearly a lie.

"Yeeeah just a coupl'a brews," Ryan corroborates.

Claire rolls her eyes. They reek of whiskey. "Put him on the couch," she orders. "I don't want him dropping something upstairs and waking Mary up."

"Aw c'mon, sis, that's not very hospit… _hospitable_ ," he slurs good-naturedly.

Dean obeys. "Sorry, man," he says, "she's in charge around here."

Apparently, the couch is perfectly comfortable. Ryan is in a deep slumber in a matter of minutes.

.

.

.

"You could stay, you know," Claire suggests at the end of the gravel driveway. "Dean likes you."

"He's a good guy," Ryan says fondly. "I'm really happy you found this, Claire. I'm really happy for you. But I have to go back. There's someone…"

Claire grins broadly at him, surprised. "Why are you just mentioning this now?"

"Well, it's still early, but…"

"You'll have to take her down here so we can meet her."

Ryan smiles back without showing his teeth. "Yeah. Maybe someday."

.

.

.

They put themselves back together.

Piece by piece.

* * *

 _The End_

* * *

 **A/N: I didn't want to leave you guys with something so goddamn depressing, but this was the best I could do haha. Hopefully it mitigates the pain a little.**


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